Mer Language Family

 

The Mer language family consists of only three known languages, but by the middle of the Enlightenment many scholars were beginning to question whether the Mer languages are not the precursors of the entire Human-Elvish language family. This will likely never be known, as none of the languages of the Mer family are written.

Ancient Mer (before Year -5000 to Year -2000?)

This is the original language of the Merfolk; dating from the First Epoch or earlier. This language is only known to exist from songs still sung by modern Merfolk that have been passed down for millennia. The meaning of many of these songs is lost, but parts of many of them, and even a few entire songs have been deciphered - providing enough concrete evidence to indicate the existence of a single, global Mer language from the era. As this is a dead language, only of interest to scholars, the language itself has no name in Mer, and is only referred to acaedmically as Ancient Mer.

Eneoorook (Year -2000? to Year 600?)

Referred to by scholars as Old Mer, this language persists largely through oral histories and epic poems passed down through Merfolk societies over thousands of years. By the Enlightenment, only a vanishingly small number of Merfolk elders, and a few scholars could speak the language, and attempts to translate and record the extant oral histories were slow-going.

Eneook (Year 600? to current)

Eneoorook, or Old Mer, transformed significantly in the Imperial Era when Merfolk began engaging with surface dwelling species to a much greater extent. The modern Mer language, known as Eneook, became more concise, and even adopted some words and sounds from the lyrical High Elvish language - particularly in the way it was spoken by Avians. Many of the songs of Ancient Mer began to be sung (and quite beautifully so) by Avians during the Imperial Era. Eneook - known to landfolk as - Imperial Mer continues to be the primary language of Merfolk around the world through to the Fifth Epoch and beyond.

Mer Language Characteristics

The Mer Language is principally intended to be spoken (more like sung) underwater, and consequently has a very limited set of usable vowel and consonant sounds. Mer is a highly tonal language, though when spoken on land, in the air, many of the tonal qualities of the language are lost, as such, it is very difficult to study. Further complicating the language is that its tones are modulated by distance, temperature, salinity, current, and other characteristics of the water, so a word or concept might mean different things to different listeners depending on a huge number of factors.

The Mer Language has only twelve letters, though there are many tonemes formed from different tones of each consonant-vowel pair. The letters of the Mer language, and their sounds are described below.